Taylor's Journal

Monday, 12/3/07

            Today we got the assignment for this project where we have to make a website on a bacteria that is beneficial to humans, animals, and/or plants. I am partners with Birdie Birdsong and we are studying bifidobacterium. We started working on it during class after Mrs. Jansen gave us the overview on how to work the website and Mrs. Rasmussen explained the project. We have a timeline due wednesday. Birdie and I started the timeline in class and we got about halfway done until I realized that when I finished it during my free period we had to do everyday progress instead of every other day progress because that just makes more sense. Anyway, I had to redid it the right way with everyday and we finished that. We are going to start research tomorrow. I think this will be a fun project because most people don't think of bacteria as beneficial.

 Tuesday, 12/4/07

            Okay, here's the deal. I thought I did the timeline right and it turns out that I didn't. Me and Birdie redid the entire timeline because we had to write about what we were going to do which day and who was going to do what section(s). We finished that and then we started messing with the features on the website to get a feel for it. We tried all the skins and decided that we liked hyperreal best even though Birdie wishes it was hot pink instead of orange but I told her I didn't know how to change it. We also made a home page and linked it to the home page on the side bar and we added a welcome greeting. We added a slogan called, "Welcome to Taylor and Birdie's Bifidobacterium Website. Everything you need to know about Bifidobacterium". Birdie and I tried to add a picture onto the bottom of the slogan with a picture of bifidobacterium, but it crammed all the words together and wouldn't work. I am going to go talk to Mrs. Jansen about it tomorrow to see what we are doing wrong. I hope it isn't as complicated as it seems.

 Wednesday, 12/5/07

              Today Mrs. Jansen came into our classroom and talked to us about using the web evaluation guide and sheet to teach us about sites that are good to use for research and sites that aren't. It was pretty funny because some of the websites were terrible to use and Mrs. Jansen told us that some schools actually used them. Me and Birdie are still trying to figure out what it means to get the ideas for presentation. We are going to ask Mrs. Rasmussen tomorrow and see. I looked around the databases a little bit and tried to find some information but kind of had a hard time and couldn't find anything about my bacteria, turns out that I spelled it wrong. Can you imagine that? Well that turned out to be a bust so I just went to something else. I finally fixed the home page and got the picture and words to show up. I am going to try researching tomorrow with the correct spelling. I guess I need to write it down.

Thursday, 12/6/07

             Today didn't really have anything to do with the project. Birdie and I looked on Wikipedia to see just some basic information on our bacteria to kind of get the gist of it. I also finished my Pre-Lab that we are going to do tomorrow during class because it is due tomorrow and we can't do the lab without the pre-lab so I did that. Also, Birdie changed the background, or skin, of the website to bamboo. Today during class we just did research on our bacteria and talked about how the bacterial cultures were coming late from the supplier and how we couldn't do the lab today, but we are doing it tomorrow so that should be fun. I also had to reconnect the home page because it wasn't directly connected and now it is so i'm pretty proud of myself. I had to leave class early because of my basketball tournament in Llano so I didn't get a whole bunch of research done but enough to get through my timeline. Also, Birdie and I finished our Ideas for Presentation but i'm pretty sure that we need to look over it and make sure we got everything. Always check everything twice.

 Friday, 12/7/07 through Sunday, 12/9/07

          Okay, so this weekend was pretty hectic. I had a basketball tournament in Llano on friday and saturday and we got third place which was cool. I am almost done with the structure of bifidobacterium and I looked on wikipedia to see if they had anything on that because Mrs. Jansen said that no one would tamper with wikipedia when it comes to specific bacteria, my theory is that they are too stupid to even type in the bacteria but i'm sure everyone thinks that. Unfortunately, wikipedia had barely any information when I typed in bifidobacterium then I tried, bifidobacteria and got the exact same results. I then remembered what Mrs. Jansen told us about putting our bacteria in parentheses and I put in "bifidobacterium" and when it gave me the exact same results as the rest I figured wikipedia wasn't going to be on of my sources. I went on Gale group and found a page just on bifidobacterium and had the words beneficial bacteria in the title. However, it doesn't have anything on the structure but has a lot on interesting facts and the basic uses of bifidobacterium so I went ahead and added it to our bibliography page for future reference. I then went to Encyclopaedia Britannica Online database and didn't have anything on structure and little information on bifidobacterium itself. Nettrekker was my next option and I found nothing! I was very frustrated when I decided to try the free web. The first website was wikipedia and I clicked on it and found nothing, but then clicked on the wikipedia link indented below it and found a whole page of information. I found out that the structure of bifidobacterium is rod-shaped bacterium.

Monday, 12/10/07

           During class today, we analyzed the results from the Antibiotic Sensitivity Lab. I was partners with Shay Gude. I also finished my lab report that is due tomorrow. I looked on my timeline and my assignment is to do the gramstain. I rememebered I went to wikipedia from the day before and saw something about gramstain. I went back to wikipedia and saw it was gramstain positive. I added that to the homepage of the website and I am done for the day.

Tuesday, 12/11/07

         We have a pre-lab due tomorrow over differential media. I did the pre-lab and it is already 8:45. During class, Birdie and I did research and looked through our website to see if everything was going smoothly. Guess what?! It is. I can't find any information on nutritional requirements. I am going to talk to Mrs. Rasmussen tomorrow about it because I'm not exactly sure what she's looking for in that area of research. To go into further detail about Birdie and I did in class, we added all of our titles to the sidebar and she emailed me her pages because her computer won't let her link them. Wierd. I also had difficulty downloading the Web Site Evaluation Guide. For some reason, every single time I tried to open it, it would close all of my internet explorer applications and ask me to send an error report. This was very frustrating. Mrs. Tucker and Mrs. Rasmussen both told me to e-mail Mrs. Jansen and ask her to send it to me and ask her if she knew was wrong. Mrs. Jansen replied back to me and attached a copy of the Web Site Evaluation Guide and I saved it so now it works. Pheww. I thought that was going to take forever to figure out what was wrong.

Wednesday, 12/12/07

            Okay, so I didn't get the chance to ask Mrs. Rasmussen about nutritional requirements so I am going to e-mail her about it because I completely forgot. In class, we did a lab that was called Bacteria Confirmation Lab that had to do with differential media and motility tests. I checked the timeline and it says that I am doing history tonight. I looked on Gale Group and the only websites that came up were about probiotics and this is part of my research but not my history. I printed out the Website Evaluation Guide and went to search on Google since all of the databases didn't really seem to have what I needed. I found a website named http://www.supplementnews.org/bifidobacterium/index.htm. This website is great! It has a bunch of information that is useful to Birdie and I's project. I filled out a Website Evaluation Form after I read through the article. It doesn't have that much information on history of bifidobacterium but, it has almost everything else. I went out citation builder and added it to our bibliography. I, once again, went to google.com and typed in Bifidobacterium History. The results were great. I found a website almost immediately that was written by a guy who got a PhD in Microbiology. I read the article and then filled out the Website Evaluation Guide and wrote my history. Also, I used SourceAid Citation Builder to cite the website. Finally! I'm done with history of bifidobacterium.

Thursday, 12/13/07

         Today during class, Charlie, Peter, Christine and I all checked the data from the MOT and MAC tests yesterday than we ran for our Bacteria Confirmation Lab. Also, we had to do the gramstaining and made data charts for all of the data that we collected. The gramstaining was pretty cool. Therefore, I had to write a lab report on the lab due tomorrow so that pretty much took up my entire biology. I checked the timeline and it says that we were just going to get done with what we had to do yesterday which means that I didn't have anything due tomorrow. However, I forgot that I didn't understand Nutrition Requirements fully and that I forgot to e-mail Mrs. Rasmussen about it. Also, we were busy with the lab so I didn't have any time to ask her so I e-mailed her just now and I will get that done by tomorrow.

Friday, 12/14/07

        Today during class, Mrs. Rasmussen gave us about ten minutes to go print out our lab reports and turn them in. For the duration of the period, except for fifteen minutes, Mrs. Rasmussen discussed what she was looking for in our projects, the grading rubric, and reminded us to look at our e-mails for Mrs. Jansen's comments to some pages she browsed through. For the last fifteen minutes, Birdie and I worked on our project and I told her that she needed to send me her pages so I could link them because her Macintosh limits what she can do to our PB Wiki. Mrs. Rasmussen e-mailed me back on what she expected out of Nutritional Requirements. I checked the timeline and I decided that I didn't have to do anything except for Nutritional Requirements and add links, videos, and etc which I can do tomorrow.

Saturday, 12/15/07

          Today, I am going to do Nutritional Requirements for Bifidobacterium. I went onto Gale Group and got no results that were useful for Birdie and I's website. Then, I went to Encyclopaedic Britannica: Online School Edition and got nothing. Finally, I went to Net Trekker. Net Trekker had nothing on bifidobacterium in general. I had given up on the databases and downloaded three copies of the Website Evaluation Guide so I could go to Google and scope around there. I really struggled with trying to find information on the nutritional requirements because the only thing the website and articles seemed to be telling me were that they are anaerobic, which I already knew. I went to some wikipedia site in German and I pressed translate and It sent me to a page that I had never seen before. It wasn't on the wikipedia when I searched but, it didn't give me the information I needed so it didn't really matter. Also, I e-mailed Mrs. Rasmussen because I am starting to get the impression that I don't know what to look for underneath Nutritional Requirements. I e-mailed this to her and I am going to do Nutritional Requirements first thing tomorrow morning.

Sunday, 12/16/07

          The project is due today. Birdie still has to send me her pages that she made because her Macintosh won't let her link them on her computer. I also am waiting for the e-mail from Mrs. Rasmusen clarifying what the Nutritional Requirements section is supposed to be on. Mrs. Rasmussen e-mailed me back and cleared up everything about Nutritional Requirements, it turns out that I had the completely wrong idea so I was glad that I asked for her assistance. Birdie added her pages to the site and e-mailed me her half of the audience evaluation questions. I am going to go on google to get the last part of my Nutritional Requirements done with. I found a great website, filled out the Website Evaluation Guide. All I have to do now is link my notes to the website and I can turn it in along with the Audience Evaluation.